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Roberts is going for a more game-faithful film.

Since the early 2000s, the Resident Evil films have had a penchant for being a bit… silly. While their source material, the Resident Evil video games, are certainly no strangers to camp, the films tended to be heavier on stuntastic action scenes and lighter on plot and character interaction. This is a dichotomy that Johannes Roberts is looking to tip a bit with the upcoming Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a film adaptation of the events of the first two Resident Evil games.

In an interview with IGN, Roberts said that while he actually really likes the original Resident Evil movies with Milla Jovovich, “It wasn’t really Resident Evil as I knew it – the previous movies never captured the game and the feelings I got when playing the game (that’s not a criticism I think it just went in a different direction). I wanted to go back to the horror of it all. I wanted scares and atmosphere rather than full-on action. I think fans of the game felt the same – they wanted to see the iconic characters and locations and feel that the movie was more in line with the Resident Evil game world so that’s really why we chose to go in that direction.

'Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City' first look photos 📸 @getfandomgaming

Hitting theaters Nov. 24

(via @SonyPictures) pic.twitter.com/YeqdrRtqeK

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Roberts wants to move away a bit from the stylized, cybernetic aesthetic of the old trilogy and get things back to the unsettling grime of the bombed-out ruins of Raccoon City. “I was hugely influenced in particular by the remake of the second game and I really wanted to capture the atmosphere-drenched tone that it had. It was so cinematic. The previous movies were very bright and shiny whereas this movie was dark and grimy, entirely shot at night. It’s constantly raining and the town is shrouded in mist.”

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is scheduled to hit theaters on November 24, 2021.